The Internet and other modes of communication create vast amounts of media for people to consume. A person may receive content from really simple subscription (RSS) feeds, e-mails from friends, tweets, browsing of websites, notifications from social networking sites, text searches, television, newspapers, and multiple other sources. Checking multiple accounts and websites for sources of media may take several hours for a “well-connected” person. As the threshold amount of effort required to check many disparate sources of media increases, the convenience of the Internet and media sources decreases. With too much information, some people may give up and stop accessing some or all of these media sources and miss out on potentially interesting content.
If simplicity was paramount, a person might choose to receive a morning newspaper or to view the evening news. Each of these media sources is easy to locate and conveniently packaged—the newspaper shows up on the doorstep every morning and the TV news is broadcast every evening. However, there is no individual customization beyond selecting a newspaper or news broadcast.
Providing techniques to access to the plethora of media available from the Internet, and other sources, in a personalized manner without requiring significant effort to locate interesting and relevant content would be desirable to many people.